EA’s Visceral Games in Montreal is laying off employees, possibly closing

Add another casualty to the list of today’s gaming news. Frank Gibeau, the President of EA, has just confirmed that they are laying off employees at their Montreal studio Visceral Games, the same studio that had recently finished working on Dead Space 3.

After speaking about the exciting opportunities offered by the PS4 and commenting that “EA’s next-gen software is nothing short of astonishing,” he mentions that “transition is our friend,” leading to the news of the studio’s closing.

EA’s leadership on these high-growth platforms allows us to retain and attract the industry’s best talent. Thousands of our existing employees have been retrained and redeployed to work on the new platforms and initiatives. But when it is not possible to redeploy a team, we soften the tough decisions with assistance. This week we let some people go in Los Angeles, Montreal as well as in some smaller locations. These are good people and we have offered outplacement services and severance packages to ease their transition to a new job.

Console transitions are a complex and challenging experience. I’ve helped navigate several and agree with an old saying we have at EA: Transition is our friend. All the trend lines are converging to reward the creative and financial investments we have made in mobile and console technology. We have never been more ready or more excited about what comes next.

More information as we get it. Best of luck to all affected by the news.